Hardware RAID 1 on a PC - experienced advice sought on the best card to buy

[olnacl]

I posted earlier about a Humane Society No Kill shelter that I'm helping at. They have decided they'd like a mirrored backup (the last hard drive crash left them hanging for days while I tried to figure out what had been done, how and with what the backup was created, and finally restore everything). While I explained that the backup is only as good as the original, they'd like to be able, under ideal conditions, to simply reboot into the mirror. I've explained the drawbacks and redundant backups are in my plan, so no need to debate the pros and cons of mirroring.

What I'd like is experienced advice about a RAID card - not even sure what type I need - PCI, PCI Express - I'll have to figure that out on another trip to the shelter - but a reliable hardware card, if anyone has a suggestion. Looking at what I see on the web, it's more than a little confusing with prices from $14.95 to several hundred dollars. They have decided against software RAID, as found in Windows Professional.

I will speak to our sponsor as well, but being mainly Mac-centric, thought I'd try the forum as well, given the diversity of the membership.

Thanks for any and all help.

[M A V I C]

Why not a software RAID? The cheap cards are basically just that - they pass off the RAID functions to the CPU.

I don't understand your "simply reboot into the mirror" comment. In a RAID 1, if one drive dies typically the machine stays up on the second drive, but goes into a mode where you can't write to the drive until you replace the second one.

[mattkime]

thats fine as long as they have a real backup solution in place. but you knew that.

[M A V I C]

And many PC mobos can do RAID1 as well.

[C(-)ris]

M A V I C wrote:

I don't understand your "simply reboot into the mirror" comment. In a RAID 1, if one drive dies typically the machine stays up on the second drive, but goes into a mode where you can't write to the drive until you replace the second one.

That isn't at all how the Apple software(or the hardware RAID card) RAID works. One drive fails, array goes degradded, but is still fully functional. No restart needed either.

[M A V I C]

C(-)ris wrote:
[quote=M A V I C]

I don't understand your "simply reboot into the mirror" comment. In a RAID 1, if one drive dies typically the machine stays up on the second drive, but goes into a mode where you can't write to the drive until you replace the second one.

That isn't at all how the Apple software(or the hardware RAID card) RAID works. One drive fails, array goes degradded, but is still fully functional. No restart needed either.
Yeah, it varies. Some still allow you to write, some don't. One way or another most go into a "degraded" status. I've even seen one (very high-end RAID) that forced you to take the array offline if a drive failed.

[olnacl]

OK - now that we've corrected my statement about "rebooting" into the mirror, any suggestions on what flavor RAID card to purchase?

[M A V I C]

LSI is pretty good... but I'm still curious why you don't want a software RAID. If you goal is that the Windows server doesn't go down when a drive dies, that's a very good solution. There's much fewer variables than dealing with a hardware controller.

[olnacl]

The current OS is Vista Home Premium which AFAIK, don't support software RAID. I'd prefer not to buy a new OS and go through the extra effort to replace the OS and reinstall the software and server files again. That's the main reason to go with a card for which I can hopefully install the needed drivers, etc on the current OS. If I'm incorrect about that, please let me know and point me to where I can find that information.

I did suggest the software RAID as an option but the director and her employees chose the card solution.

[C(-)ris]

olnacl wrote:
The current OS is Vista Home Premium which AFAIK, don't support software RAID. I'd prefer not to buy a new OS and go through the extra effort to replace the OS and reinstall the software and server files again. That's the main reason to go with a card for which I can hopefully install the needed drivers, etc on the current OS. If I'm incorrect about that, please let me know and point me to where I can find that information.

I did suggest the software RAID as an option but the director and her employees chose the card solution.

Get rid of that POS Vista and either get Windows 7 or downgrade to XP if the machine will run it. What do you mean by server files? I can't imagine if Vista home is working for them that the machine is doing any real server duty.

Also, to recommend a card we need to know what type of slot the PC has.